bit of a fak up, ey?

so most of the world shares the view that americans know very little about most of the world.  while i too hold this sentiment, i should put in a disclaimer right now - that the majority of americans we've met over here have proved this theory wrong.

i place this disclaimer this upfront, in fear of losing some very dear friends i've had the pleasure of meeting since we came to korea.  this being said, i do feel the need to share this (sorry guys!)

i'm sure many of you will have seen this already (if nowhere else, than on my facebook profile a few weeks ago).

anyway, Fathead and i have been teaching adult students this week - a special program the school is running for city council staff members who want to meet foreigners and improve on their englishee conversation skills.

so far it's been a really rewarding, experience for us both.  don't get me wrong - it's not that i don't enjoy teaching the little people ... but an adult audience offers an entirely refreshing experience.  for one thing, they actually want to learn english.  for another, they don't need to be shrilly commanded to wash their hands before lunch.  there are, of course, other good points - but i'm sure you can deduce these for yourself.

the point here, is that in Fathead's class today, he was discussing the concept of "stereotypes" and - as the discussion moved to "americans" - one of his students remarked "americans were ignorant".

now i'm not saying i necessarily agree with this ... whole-heartedly.  i'm not even saying that there is any truth in it.

infact, i'm not going to say anything more - i'm just going to show you this:

key-you-ta!

this clip has been keeping me very entertained over the past few weeks.  this little dude just rocks my world - and he reminds me of most of the kids we teach every week.

the interwebs say he is japanese - although i find that very hard to believe ... based on the fact that he looks korean, and not japanese.  but that's just my opinion.

either way - this is the level of cuteness we're dealing with over here, on a daily basis.

check out my new best ukelele friend.

big iain, yellow cat

one of the drawcards of snet (the school where Fathead and i have been working since january) was, and still is, the refreshing curriculum.

as we are an english camp, rather than a school, the students are only with us for a week at a time - so the intention is not so much to teach them english, but rather to immerse them in a western world, expose them to different cultures and ways of thinking and provide them with practical english-speaking skills.

the kinds of lessons we teach range from the obscure to the practical: sign language, yoga, cooking and team-building ... broadcasting studio, bank and post office, weather forecasting, travel agency and homestay.

each week, we take on two lessons (split between morning and afternoon classes), with a homeroom class for whom we are responsible and required to fill a more parental/guardian role.

*touch wood*   i've been blessed with a long, un-interrupted run of absolutely fabulous groups for homeroom.  these sessions are probably the highlight of my working day.  a 50 min period where you get to engage, interact, share, discuss, debate, teach and learn.  the kids range in their levels of english abilities, but somehow, with every new school we host, i manage to find several amazing young minds which blow mine.

in these homeroom sessions, we usually task the students with a written journal assignment.  if your group is high enough in their english level, you can set them topics like "if i could change one thing in the world, it would be ..."  or  "which came first, the chicken or the egg?".

last week, the latter topic resulted in one student explaining (in great detail) the controversial debate between the "creative" and "envelope" theories.

the journals are often insightful masterpieces of pre-pubescent thinking.  they are mature, naive, troubled and hopeful.  very often, because of their limited ability to express themselves fully in a foreign language, i forget that they are actually young adults - with fully-developed opinions and ideas.  hormones are racing through their blood streams just as they do in every other child of their age, the world over.

sometimes the journal entries evoke maternal instincts of protection and a need to keep the young, young.  other times, they humble me with their candidness.  they are always honest, and almost always, incredible.

click images to enlarge

 

for many of the students, we are the first western foreigners they will interact with - so we tend to become fascinating creatures in their eyes:

we're impossibly tall, have funny coloured hair and eyes, speak in strange tongues and come from mystical lands far, far away.

"I thought that South Africa's people were all black.  However it was no!"

to distinguish between Fathead and another teacher who shares his name, the students have labelled him "big iain"  (in reference to his height).  for no practical reason, they have taken to calling me "yellow cat" and because of my name, i am often depicted as a feline heroine.  

last week my homeroom drew me as a yellow supercat, wielding a board marker in the one hand, and (for some reason known only to the artists) wearing nothing but a brick of ramen (two minute noodles) as a fanny-pack.  

don't ask.

 

nobody panic!

i'm not sure if you've been following the world news lately - but there's been a rather important story unfolding on this side of the globe ...

to catch you up, basically there are two countries - north korea and south korea.  in the last century, there was an armed conflict between the two, which came to an end in 1953.  however, no peace treaty was ever signed and as a result, the two sides are technically still at war.

since the fighting ceased, the south has flourished into an internationally respected nation.  the north, run by a nutcase (kim jong-il) has been sanctioned to the hilt, and has receded into complete isolation from the rest of the world.

kim jong-il ... fruitcake

same-same.

their brothers in the south used to send them aid, with the intention of repairing relations. however, two years ago they stopped the "sunshine policy" as the north became ever more resistant to co-operating with the world and it's anti-nuke efforts.

so the people in the north hate the world, and the world pretty much hates the people in the north.  china is kind of fencing-sitting and the americans (obviously) have set up camp and made themselves quite comfortable on the south's border, guns locked and loaded.

about a month ago, there was a south korean military ship that cruised into waters of a disputed territory between the two sides.  there was an explosion, and the ship sank - tragically claiming the lives of 46 south korean soldiers.  the nation went into mourning, whilst the south korean president vowed that a full investigation would be conducted, and if foul play was proven, he would respond "resolutely".

courtesy of bbc.com

i'm sure you can guess where this is going?  so, they put together an international task team (so that the findings would be objective), and the findings were (surprise, surprise) that the explosion was a torpedo from the north.

the north are denying it - but just for good measure, are also saying that if they are given any trouble as a result of it, they are ready and more than willing to go to war.

america has said that the north will not be excused from this act, and will be sent a very clear and strong message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated by the rest of the world.

china are just repeating the sequence of events in a factual, impartial voice - while japan have joined the american band-wagon.

and the south are holding their breath - waiting for their president, lee myeung-bak, to address the nation with his solution.

what this "solution" will be, in unclear - as the south have a slight dilemma on their hands:

• they don't want to go to war, if not for humanitarian reasons then financial ones. 
• further sanctions on the north would be futile - as there's pretty much nothing left for them to sanction, and it would only provoke the north's trigger-happy finger.  
• adult discussion is completely out of the question, as the north's leader is even more balmy than that syphillis-ridden mugabe twat. 

on the ground, the feeling is un-phased and maybe somewhat oblivious.  life goes on as normal, and we probably would not have even heard about all this had it not been for world news broadcasters.  i'm still trying to decide whether to find comfort in the calm, or be concerned by it.  i'll let you know when i've come to a conclusion.  but for now, we keep our eyes glued to the headlines and our fingers crossed.  i have no doubt that should things take a turn for the worst, we'll be on the first flight out - and we're only here for 5 more weeks, so we should be fine. i'm pretty sure we'll be fine ... here's hoping. 

basically all they need to do is save face, avenge the murder of their soldiers', fulfill international expectations, live up to their promise of "resolute response", maintain the strength of the currency, avoid world war III and send a message to a leader who refuses to hear it.

but like i said, "nobody panic" ...

the glass is half full (of rain)

lately, most of our time on the interwebs is spent researching our future destinations.  it's amazing how many hours you can lose trawling travel blogs, forums and on-line visa providers. lonely planet's website is seeing more traffic, than the koeberg interchange on a friday afternoon.

i've just stumbled upon this article, which i absolutely love. it has such a refreshing way of looking at monsoon season (during which we will be experiencing most of our travels).

let it rain (click to view)

a note from the author

there's been a marked decrease in the frequency of my posts on this here blog of mine.  the reasons are varied - from periods of internet-less-ness (due to server crashes), to bouts of blogger's block. 

i've also been doing a lot of back-end maintenance on the blog, while i still have the chance - heaven only knows how much internet access i will have once we're backpacking.

for future reference - all facebook albums will be linked to the F@head files via the strip of pink links you'll find in the sidebar on the right.  these take you directly to the complete collection of my most recent photos. 

changing view

spring has finally arrived and our world has been completely transformed.  this is the view from our room, and its various phases of metamorphosis.

well, blow me down

when you first get to korea, just about everything is new and different.  you spend most of your time people watching, gazing in awe at the countless examples of strangeness that ooze from every nook and cranny in this odd country.

once you've been here for a few months, the novelty wears off.  things that used to floor you, are now largely unnoticed.

you forget that it's not normal to drink beer from a plastic bottle.
you stop having to remind yourself to get toilet paper on your way out of the restaurant to the shared, public toilet.
it no longer strikes you as disgusting to have to throw used toilet paper into a bin, as opposed to flushing it down the bowl.

by now, forks and flattering female footwear are a distant memory.

so once you've reached this stage, it is both refreshing and surprising when you stumble upon something that still tickles the western cynic within.  for me, this topic of fascination and amusement has provided us with hours of hilarity.  and the funny thing is, it's not a joke.

if i told you that it was a cultural belief, you'd be hard pressed to find it polite to laugh about - right?  what if i told you that it is also afforded the reputation of taking many korean lives every year?  a recognised killer of the elderly and young.  it strikes in summer and leaves families traumatised is its wake of destruction.

not a laughing matter, you're thinking.
you'd be right.

until i told you that this ruthless killer was this guy:

fan death

i shit you not.  this is a real, medically accepted cause of death in korea.  no joke.

as the temperatures rise in the summer months, so too do the levels of fear and caution around this very dangerous appliance.  i'd love to tell you that the fatal blow ('scuse the pun) is a manufacturing fault that causes the fan to burst into flames, engulfing everyone and thing around it in a fatal explosion.  however, that would make too much sense.  instead, this killing machine uses a far more subtle method of slaughter.

to convince skeptical westerners of this phenomenon, koreans will provide one of the following explanations:

theory 1: when left on overnight in a sealed room, a fan creates a vortex, sucking all the oxygen from the room - hence leading to suffocation.

theory 2: the blades of a fan chop up the oxygen particles in the air, leaving none left for the sleeping victim to inhale.

theory 3: the fan itself somehow uses the oxygen in the air, as fuel - leaving dangerously high (fatal) levels of carbon dioxide in the air.

theory 4 (and my personal favourite): fans cause hypothermia.   now i don't know about you, but there are nights in africa where the temperatures are so unbearably high that i would pay good money for a fan effective enough to cause hypothermia.

i will forever treasure the look of utter perplexity, that the kids had the other day, when i shattered their worlds with one simple truth:

"did you know that no other people in the whole world have ever died from fan death?"

"but teacher ... why?"

"well, no one dies from fans anywhere else but in korea"

"haull" (annoying throat noise they make to indicate surprise)

"i don't know ... why do you think that is?"

blank blinking stares.

the belief in fan death is not an out-dated myth, held only by the inbred and village idiots.  no,no.  fan death is a medically accepted cause of death.  it is regularly reported on in the media.  well-educated, credible public figures acknowledge and fear it.

so serious is this matter, that the government-funded Korean Consumer Protection Board issued this public safety alert in 2006:

"If bodies are exposed to electric fans or air conditioners for too long, it causes [the] bodies to lose water and [causes] hypothermia. If directly in contact with [air current from] a fan, this could lead to death from [an] increase of carbon dioxide saturation concentration [sic] and decrease of oxygen concentration. The risks are higher for the elderly and patients with respiratory problems. From 2003 [to] 2005, a total of 20 cases were reported through the CISS involving asphyxiations caused by leaving electric fans and air conditioners on while sleeping. To prevent asphyxiation, timers should be set, wind direction should be rotated and doors should be left open."

to combat this crisis, all fans are sold with health warnings and switch-off timers.

a few weeks ago, a friend of ours was down with a very bad bout of the flu.  to counter her raging temperature, she slept with her fan on all night.  and to counter that, she kept her windows wide open.  she did this, not because she had bought into the myth - but rather to ensure that if she did peg in the night her death certificate would not be delivered to her welsh mother stating that her daughter had lost her fight for life, to a fan.

when i decided to write a post about fan death - i gave it a considerable think.  cultural differences are very often at the centre of a heated debate over here.  especially in the multicultural community we are in.  words and their meanings are often interpreted out of context.  offense is easily caused without intent.  being a westerner in korea, you have to be especially careful to not pass judgment and always be aware that somethings are neither wrong, nor right ... only different.

i could have approached this with more objectivity, yes.  i'll admit that it lacks a respectful tone.  but had i tried to present this matter to you in any nicer way, i couldn't have given it the ridicule it deserves.

63 years on

our team co-ordinator and friend is rather actively involved in a voluntary international outreach team who work tirelessly, to grow the awareness of the little-exposed issue of "comfort women".

in the asia-pacific war (1931-1945) an estimated 200 000 asian women (most of whom were korean) were forcefully recruited (through deception and kidnapping) into sexual slavery.  these women are / were known as comfort women and for many years, were held hostage, raped, abused, tortured and deprived of food and adequate medical care.

on sunday, we attended the screening of a documentary made about these women.  it was shown at this temple in insadong.

the juxtaposition of this peaceful sanctuary of worship and the disturbing personal accounts we heard, only made this issue even more deeply moving and frighteningly eye-opening.

such an atrocious part of history has, for decades, been kept a dark and sordid secret.  only decades after the war, one woman spoke out - exposing the harrowing truth about what had happened to her during those years.  it was the first time the world had heard of comfort women.   following this, other women (now well in their twilight years) have slowly come forward.

in korea,  220 former comfort women identified themselves - only 89 of these are still alive.

courtesy of www.houseofsharing.org

although these women were taken from all over asia, the majority were from here.  most of them were between the ages of 14 and 19.  comfort stations were established all over military routes - including bases in laos, cambodia, korea, vietnam, the philippines and many in china. 

they "serviced" japanese soldiers.

the documentary told the first-hand accounts of 5 of these women.  the halmonies (respectful korean term for "grandmothers") spoke of their sexual slavery - being raped day and night by soldier after soldier.

over and above the torment they had to endure during the war years, their stories continue beyond the end of the war. when it finally ended, these women were either massacred or abandoned.   left stranded in foreign lands, with no money, no identity papers, no means of communication, they had no possible hope of ever regaining the life that had been taken from then.  some were able to return to their homes, or remarry - but often they were rejected in shame and stigma, by their new husbands and families, once the truth of their wartime experiences emerged.

i had only heard very brief mention of the issue, prior to watching the screening - and as i my understanding if it grew in detail, it was an incredibly hard pill to swallow.  watching this documentary makes you feel so angry, sick to your stomach, passionate and helpless all at the same time. the reason for it's screening was to grow awareness of what happened.     

actually, to simply state that it did in fact happen in the first place.

to this day, the japanese government refuses to acknowledge its existence.  they offer no explanation for these women and their stories.  they deny any involvement in the abduction of these girls - despite documented proof that the comfort stations were the "brain child" of the japanese government (established as an initiative to control the spread of STD's amongst their troops).  it goes without saying that they also refuse to apologize, or include it in the historical textbooks ... seen as, according to them, "it never happened".

the house of sharing (which is a home for healing for some of the last-remaining survivors) dedicates it's time to supporting the women, both in care and activism.   every wednesday, volunteers and former comfort women hold a peaceful protest outside the japanese embassy in korea.  inside the house, there is also a public museum showcasing photographic and video evidence, documents and artefacts, as well as therapeutic artwork by the survivors.

in their protests, programmes and awareness events - they ask only that these war crimes be acknowledged by the japanese government.  63 years on, they have yet to receive a personal apology.  63 years on, the history books remain silent about this sickening truth.  63 years on, and the last remaining survivors (whose entire lives have been shattered, molded, determined and destroyed by this) - are the only, diminishing, voices who are brave enough to come forth and take on a powerful national government like japan's.

as a child of south africa - i only know a history that is filled with violation of human rights, protest, uprising and reconciliation.  to come to this seemingly "random" place, all the way "over there" on the other side of the world - and hear of human degradation of this magnitude is mind blowing.  why the hell doesn't the world know about this?  this was one war, in one part of the world. how many other wars have had similar comfort women systems - how many female lives have been shattered in their wakes? how many women are comforting soldiers right now?

the helpless feeling i mentioned earlier hasn't gone away.
but in a way, this post will help to grow awareness of these war crimes:    if you didn't know about comfort women three minutes ago - then at least you're one more person who does know now.

and that's important - not because you know something about what happened to those people, over there on the other side of the world.  but because this is living history.  this is part of our shared, world history.  and even though it's 63 years on,  it's not a past reality, but one of the present.

if the truth of this issue isn't spread across the globe, then we run the very real risk of it becoming a future reality too.

to learn about comfort women and the house of sharing, click here.

gallery for the technologically-challenged

my relationship with the interweb goes through different phases.  some weeks are blogging weeks.  some are facebook weeks. some are weeks when id' prefer to avoid the interweb all together (usually when the laptop comes down with a virus and i spend most of my time with a finger pressed down on the reset button).

last week was a facebook week, hence the lull in activity on the F@head files.  now, i realise that not everyone has access to this part of my virtual life (hi mom and dad). so, below is a series of links which you can click to access all of the albums i've posted since we've been here.

our first few days in south korea

the first fortnight

following this, the next two months 

exploring insadong, and the knife gallery

our lunar new year trip to gyeongju

snippy snaps of february

skiing in gohan

party nights in itaewon and gangnam

the SNET team

quiz nights with our team, "the social livers"

st paddy's celebrations

sabiha's visit

the last snow of winter